Looking For Gold | Once upon a time DRILL

An Act of Love

By Isabella Morris

Once upon a time, not in time ago or in time present, winter has sucked the colour from the city turning the landscape an impersonal grey. Xia Guo’s attention is drawn to a flapping sound. He looks up at a paper lantern – a remnant of Chinese New Year; throbbing in the February wind like a heart, its tassel a delicate thread of blood.

He pulls the collar of his jacket up against his naked neck and finds a bar where he might step out of the wind, where the sound of voices remembering previous lives might transport him to comforting memories of his own home.

He sits at a table next to the window where the steam of human closeness condenses against the glass and trickles down the window. He orders a light beer and dim sum, blows against his raw knuckles as he waits. Then he straightens out his hands, places them like starfish on the table and stares at them, at the grazes and the cuts and the grey scum clogged under his fingernails. The work that has roughened his hands, the lifting and placement of grey cinderblocks onto the buildings, is labour that his hands have learned. He catches sight of the jagged white scar that moons his left thumb’s fingernail and he remembers the cormorant.

He slugs down the first beer, wiping the foam from his lips with his hand. He misses the cormorants with their hook shaped throats that are cordoned off with string to stop them swallowing the fish. Here in the city Xia Guo earns money that he cannot spend; it is held in the throat of his bank and regurgitated at the end of every month when he sends it back to his village. Xia Guo has become the common chicken that is caged to sit on the cormorant eggs, unable to escape its barred enclosure. He downs another beer and orders a vodka. Tonight he gains no comfort from thinking about home, but he does not turn to the man sitting on his right because he likes the way the memory burns.

Xia Guo remembers: The river is swallow-tail black, glossy as a mirror; Xia Guo punts the bamboo raft through the water, but tonight only the oldest cormorant balances on the raft. Xia Guo propels the raft down river until he reaches a smooth stretch of uninhabited riverbank. In the moonlight he talks to the bird in a low, reassuring voice. "You are the oldest one," he says to the bird and makes a throaty sound that placates the cormorant.

Xia Guo walks to an outcrop of rock with the bird on his wrist. He sits down, draws the bird between his legs. Quickly, he tips back the beak of the bird, wedges his fingers into its beak, holds it open. He uses his teeth to uncap the vodka and pours the liquor down the bird’s throat.

The cormorant’s feet thrash against the sand, its wings instinctively swell, but Xia Guo continues pouring until the cormorant’s eyes stop blinking, its webbed feet lie against Xia Guo’s wet feet, and its wings sigh against his thighs.

Xia Guo stabs the dumpling, sees the black cherry heart of it bleed onto the plate. He orders a full bottle of vodka and contemplates another day on the building site. He swallows the vodka and knows that while there is no joy in killing, it can be an act of love.

كان يا ما كان في عصر خلت أحداثه من المعارك، إلا في حياة قصة. الفتاة التي حين أتمت عامها الخامس عشر، امتطت فرسها الصغير، سندباد، بعد أن فكت أسره من اللون الذي سحره به الدخان الأحمر، وهو من اشتعلت بينه وبينها المعارك. كان الدخان الأحمر يظهر في الأفق بخيط دخاني أحمر خفيف لا يُرى بوضوح، ثم يتكون في سرعة بعد أن اختلط رماده الأحمرمع الدخان الذي تقذفه أرض الشجرة الحمراء في الفجر، فيسطع بقوة ليقود جيش من الأدخنة التي تأتي من كل صوب، لتتمرن تحت قيادته، علها في يوم ما تكون أحد عناصره.
لا يكتفي الدخان الأحمر بأن يسبغ لونه على من يُشاهده، بل يقوده بعد ذلك لوجهته، حيث يسبغ كل من حوله بلونه الأحمر ليعيش بين خيوطه، إلا قصة، كان تأثيره عليها غريبا، فقد حاول تكرارا صبغها لكنه لم يستطع، ربما لأنها الوحيدة التي قاومته بإصرار، حتى انفصل عنها ظهرها وأصبح في حوزته.
وقتها لم تملك قصة ومجموعتها من الفتيات حق الإختيار في مواجهته، ولكن مَلكن فرسهن صغيرة الحجم، التي لايكبر حجمها ولا يقوى جسدها إلا في المعارك التي تشارك فيها، كما امتلكن أيضاً الدروع الخفية، التي تنضم إليهن مع إشعال فتيل الحماس – عند ضرب الفرس لأرجلهن على الأرض الخضراء – وتُشابك الدروع أيادي الفتيات فترة اشتعال الحماس، وتلمع الدروع بصلابة تحت شعلة الحماس. تقدم فريق قصة صندوقها الفارغ، ليجمع الطرق بداخله فترتسم مُؤدِّية إلى أرض المعركة، بعدها تدخل الطيور في الصندوق – وهي خافضة أجنحتها – لتشاهد الطرق، ثم تطير خارجا إلى أرض المعركة، فتبعث لهن بورق الشجر الذي تدفعه الرياح، ليكون حديقة يبقين بداخلها، وهي تحملهن إلى المعركة.
تجمعت الأدخنة السوداء القادمة من الغرب بعد أن أطلقها الرماد الساكن بتربة الشجر الأسود، وتقدمتها الأدخنة البيضاء الآتية من الشرق بعد أن تنفستها الرياح في الليل، فاحتلت الصف الأول وبَنَت حائط أبيض هوائي لا يرى منه الفريق الآخر المعركة التي بدأت، بعدها أطَل الدخان الأحمر من خلف صفوف الأدخنة البيضاء والسوداء وملأ الأفق بعد أن أزاح السحاب.
تقدم الدخان الأبيض، وبينما يحاربونه، تخلل الدخان الأسود الصفوف وخَنقهن، وما أن أفَقن حتى وَجدن الدخان الأحمر قد صبغ عليهن لونه الأحمر، وأصبحن إحدى عناصر قوته.
واجهت قصة الدخان الأحمر وجها لوجه، قاومته بقوة، فضربها بظهرها وجرحها أول جرح في جسدها، لم تستطع بعدها استرداد ظهرها، فقد رفعته الأدخنة وتلاشت به في الهواء، لكنها استطاعت أن تحتفظ بلونها بعد أن ضربت الدخان الأحمر بسيفها وتصدت له بدرعها، فما تبقى منه إلا رسالة على السماء تُبلِّغها بعودته للقائها مرة أخرى. بعدها توالت الحروب مرارا وتوالى انسحاب الدخان الأحمر تكرارا، ورغم ما خَلَّفه من جروح على جسدها، إلا أن الجروح لا تلبث أن تختفي، عدا الجرح الأول. عاش مع قصة عشرين سنة، أخبرها الأطباء بأنه لن يختفي، لكنها بعد مرور الوقت لن تراه.

Water Babies

Once upon a time

there was water

It filled everything. Spaces. Places in between toes.

It came to her in plenty. Placentas filled with blue. Bellies filled with too much – water after a meal that leaves her hungry but nauseas. There is no room for air.

It begins with dreams.

Not crowded. Hugged. A miniature of the Twins. Not facing outwards but facing each other. Swimming in blueness. Blue she has only thought of – starry starry blue. Swirling blue. Sleeping blue. Both hugged in blue, hugging the other in the softness of a wall-less womb.

Between them, their curls awoke, reaching for other stray strands to braid with. Braiding and curling silk and rope. Keeping them steady in blue.

In the blues.

He sank. Lower and Lower. Deeper into where should could not swim. It was too shallow. She tripped over the waves. He fell into the pillow of nightfall, she was of dawn. As he sank, he tugged and tore. Her hair flew sprawled around her not used to having no shape.

Her curls straightened in an attempt to float. Nothing. She drowned in the shades of the bruises on her body from all the times he tried to carve his name into her skin.

He is blue.

The music becomes meaningless. The notes of sorrow linked with so so long ago are not his own. He does not own the word. Nor the music. His music doesn’t match the sorrow of blues. His sorrow broke on her skin in kisses with too much love which he did not know where to keep.

She kept it in bottles.

Crying her own rain, she stored it for days of drought. Bottled. Mineral. From the belly of her eye.

Every bottle carries memory.

He is here. He was here. Once upon a memory. Once upon a dream. In a dimmed bedroom in a narrow bed hugging a window. Water bottles almost empty on bedside tables and rolling with a few lonely breezes that pass by, intrusive. She day dreamed of becoming the other twin.

"We were Siamese twins"

Her dream passed him by. Warmth touched him leaving him shivering. Ovum and sperm did not hold. The Twins never came. There was the endless braiding of hair that never holds in water. Ropes broke once the knot was tied.

The Twins did not come. She did not birth them. She lay hoping they would take shape. Hoping her body and his would curl into each other. Frantic, in a last plea she pushes the babies together.

They break into red between her thighs. His eyes, waiting for something, peeling her skin, searching for the bones.

Showers of blessings.

She knows the love of rain drops now on her face like she longed for his finger tips. Rain drops are not disappointing. At first there is too little but the thirst is gone. She just stands damp with the waiting. She stands watered.

Baraka – too sweet

too sweet

She stops buying the slim bottles he doesn't like. She stops drinking the sweetened water with blessings from the earth. She pretends fullness to pass his judgment. Sweetness can be found elsewhere. Not just in drops from the belly of the Mother.

Baraka

After midnight, under covers of white, through the drapery, the thunder wakes her. She wakes up. Suddenly. Opens her eyes. Looks at the breath rising and falling in undeclared pain and shivers beside her. There are no bottles here to choose from.

Her toes climb out into the cold, shake the fear out of bed as she peeks into gray.

The roaring welcomes her in his arms. There is no choice but to go for long desired sweetness. She wavers on the ridge. She has long forgotten the stroke for survival.

There is no blue. There is only water.

Only her. And a broken cord. 

Post edited 1:34 pm – June 7, 2011 by Sahar elmougy
Post edited 1:37 pm – June 7, 2011 by Sahar elmougy

Never Again

Once upon a time there was a people living by a river. Early enough they learned to farm the land, grow up palm trees & love. Yes their basic art was love. Was it because the river gave them water & food they had enough time to love the universe! No one is sure. But the sure thing is that they first loved the river of life which blessed them with the gift of loving. Because they loved the water, they said the Goddess Noon is the eternal ocean from where the world first sprang. Because they loved the Sun, they said Atun is the god of the universe. Because they loved justice & truth, they said Ma’at, the woman with the feather, will take care justice rules the land. Because their men loved women & their women loved men, they made sure they visit the temple of Hathur, asking her to be blessed with the art of love so that every man would please his woman & every woman her man.

Because their land was the richest & because when their women danced, the gods & goddesses smiled, they had enemies who craved the riches & the women. Armies came, but were defeated. Some of them ruled for periods of time. When this happened, the invaders had to show respect for the river & the sacred guardians of the black land. Eventually the invaders forgot themselves in the flow of life in this land & in the charm of the women.

In the black land, life was not always good. There were times of drought, so they fell hungry & prayed for water. There were times of oppression, so they danced & prayed for freedom.  There were times & times & times. But the people kept their smiles when in pain. They clinged to the rhythms of the love songs when dying. And at all times, they looked up to the heavens & asked the father & the mother up there, behind the clouds, for water & love & dance.

They say this people endured a tyrant of their own blood for many years. At the beginning, they thought he was a kind man who meant well. But he started stealing the years, polluting the sacred river & allowing the "Army of the Absolute Truth" to cover up their women & hush their voices & burn the temples. They denied the years were stolen. And when the corpses of their own sons floated on the face of the river they said "it must have been a mistake". They told the women "dance at home, No need to do that in the streets & create a scandal". Their old wise people said "let us live as our fathers & grandfathers did. In peace". They gave a blind eye & a deaf ear to what was being stolen. They had tears of course, but they locked them up in an old deserted well & walked away. The sky stopped raining. Fear, with its giant black wings covered the land & obscured the times when life was the river & dance was love. They forgot.

Then came a prince. They say he was the missionary of Ma’at. They say his father was the Atun, his mother, the Noon. They say lots of things, no one is sure. But the sure thing is the prince had a lovely smile & innocent eyes. He did not carry guns, nor did he kill Seth, the prince of the Dark. One morning, the people of that land woke up to find the body of the prince floating upon the bed of the river. The whisper circled & circled among them. Everyone left his job, women left their children. They all rushed to the banks of the river. There they stood, hundreds of them.  And yes, the body of the prince was floating on the sorrowful face of the old river, slowly, peacefully. Women cried the prince. This time they did not lock up the tears. Children looked at their mothers in wonder. Men gnawed their teeth. By night fall, they flocked back home in silence.

Oh! But did the prince leave them alone? You are right. He did not. For days & months he appeared in their night dreams. Sometimes he looked at them, a question floating upon the clear river of his eyes. Other times he was carried by the current, washing on his way the filth in the water, the broken trees & poisoned fruits. He appeared in thousands of shapes. He kept appearing. They would wake up & murmur to themselves "I have seen him last night". Or "He visited me with a sad look on his young face".

The people themselves cannot tell what happened next. Until this moment no one could. But on a cold day, they found themselves marching in the streets, walking by the river & out of their silent homes. They heard themselves shouting in anger, their roar reached the heavens. The clouds cracked. The sky rained the suppressed tears. They saw themselves dancing like they never did before, rocking their bodies to the rhythm of the old river. Their feet walked steadily upon the moaning body of fear. In one deep clear voice, that seemed to be coming from afar, they were chanting "Never again".